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Keystone Pipeline Trickle Down Effects – Let’s Hope They’re Positive

August 16, 2012

In the interest of keeping personal political views from creeping into this piece, I’ll try to keep this as factually accurate and relative to our area of business as possible.

The decision to approve the expansion of the Keystone Pipeline in the northern region of the United States is an absolutely perfect example of how this one decision will trickle down and directly affect me, you, and plenty of other Americans (either positively or negatively).

In January 2012, President Obama denied TransCanada permission to build the northern part of the pipeline from Canada to Oklahoma. Blame was placed on Congress not giving Obama enough time to review the possible negative environmental impacts.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out just what opportunities for our country lie in the decision to approve expansion of this project. Sure, there’s always environmental risks when tackling a project of this nature, and of course, no one would want to see our environment damaged. But we need to think about the bigger picture here and weigh the positives versus the negatives (and the negatives have proven to be slim).

We are in the midst of an economic downturn that is deemed comparable to the Great Depression. While I have continued to witness friends, relatives, and acquaintances losing jobs over the past few years – I remain thankful every day that I still have a job, as I’m sure all of you are.

This expansion project will lead to job creation, which leads to company expansion, which leads to more corporate buying, which leads to businesses thriving, which leads to more money in the hands of consumers, which means more money back into local businesses. It’s a logical circle and the simple fundamentals of economics. Think of how many people would be employed if this permit is passed. Think of how many companies would start to need supplies, equipment, machinery, services, etc. – it has the ability to greatly affect those around us, as well as the business that you and I are in today. And you can bet if this permit is passed, the next thing we will be going after is business in this industry and in this region of the country.

We are by no means against keeping our environment clean and safe, but let’s face it – our nation absolutely needs everything that will result from the passing of this expansion permit – and not to sound harsh but it’s well worth the very slight risk of an environmental disaster occurring.

Whether Barack Obama is reelected, or Mitt Romney becomes the 45th President of the United States – whomever it is; stalling or not allowing the expansion of this project would not only be a senseless decision, but (in my opinion) would border on gosh darn un-American.